ENHow can we express our feelings when the environment has never been allowed to become familiar? What dynamics are at play when communication with parents breaks down? Is the language barrier to blame? How do we navigate these challenges as perhaps the first generation openly questioning them? In Hörst du mich?, three protagonists grapple with the silence that often accompanies such disconnects. Hörst du mich? is a theatre project that explores the breakdown of communication and language from the perspective of second-generation Vietnamese Germans. The narrative delves into the daily struggles between two cultures, the complexity of multiple identities, and the pervasive sense of generational loneliness. The goal is to create a space where those affected can find a sense of belonging—whether in cultures, languages, or within themselves. Benjamin Truong is a Vietnamese-German director who focuses on the accessibility of theater and seeks for a community feeling. Benjamin’s productions are created through the interplay of dance, music, and language, aiming to make theater tangible in an approachable and sensual way. It is particularly important for him to not make theater exclude his own parents. For him, theater is a place for everyone. Introduction approx. 15 minutes before each performance. The introduction will be held in German, English and Vietnamese. VIChúng ta có thể nói về cảm xúc ra sao khi không gian dành cho chúng chưa từng là một nơi thân thuộc? Những yếu tố nào dẫn đến việc giao tiếp không thành với ba mẹ? Có phải chỉ do rào cản ngôn ngữ không? Chúng ta có thể làm thế nào, khi dường như, chúng ta là thế hệ đầu tiên cất tiếng hỏi những điều này? Ba nhân vật chính trong vở kịch cố gắng dịch điều khó giãi bày. Hörst du mich? là một vở kịch về những nỗ lực không thành trong giao tiếp và ngôn từ – bởi những người gốc Việt thế hệ hai, sinh ra và lớn lên tại Đức. Câu chuyện được kể từ góc nhìn của những xung đột hàng ngày giữa hai nền văn hóa, những đa dạng bản sắc, và sự cô đơn mang tính thế hệ. Vở kịch muốn tạo ra không gian để các thế hệ tìm thấy những điểm chạm – dù là trong văn hóa, ngôn ngữ, hay với chính mình. Benjamin Trương là một đạo diễn người Đức gốc Việt chú trọng đến việc đưa sân khấu đến gần hơn với công chúng và tìm kiếm cảm giác cộng đồng. Các tác phẩm của Benjamin ra đời từ sự tương tác giữa vũ đạo, âm nhạc và ngôn ngữ, nhằm mục đích làm cho sân khấu trở nên hữu hình, dễ tiếp cận và dễ cảm nhận. Điều đặc biệt quan trọng đối với anh là không để sân khấu loại trừ chính cha mẹ mình. Đối với anh, sân khấu là nơi dành cho tất cả mọi người. Với lời giới thiệu bằng tiếng Đức, tiếng Anh và tiếng Việt. Ghi chú nội […]

We inaugurate the sports festival: The curatorial team presents the festival program and we experience the BHO Fight Night: twelve Muay Thai fighters compete against each other. It’s about self-confidence, testing boundaries, the balance between strength and vulnerability – and the desire to fight. The full-contact martial art of Muay Thai combines punches, kicks, elbow and knee techniques: the whole body fights. Strategy, strength, aggression and discipline play just as important a role in training and fighting as rhythm, confidence, playfulness and composure.

Schedule:
19:00 Opening Sportfest
19:30 Fight Night
21:30 Party with DJ Baby

The time has come: Missy Magazine’s legendary Pissy podcast is leaving the studio and heading out into the fresh air – or rather, onto the pitch! We’re celebrating a premiere at the Ballhaus Ost sports festival: Pissy live and in motion.

Host Ulla Heinrich welcomes sports mice Luna Afra Evans and Philicia Kraatz for a deep dive on queer perspectives on sport, fitness and body politics. Together, they take a critical and empowering look at movement practices beyond the mainstream. What does sport mean from a queer and feminist perspective? What role patterns resonate in the aesthetics of gym core – and how can they be subversively reinterpreted?

From abs-legs-bums to powerlifting, from drag workouts to sporting icons of queer pop culture: the discussion will focus on the pleasure of movement, body norms, community spirit and the very personal sore muscles of emancipation. All three interviewees are gym rats from a wide variety of backgrounds – between performance, practice and politics.

Come along, listen, get involved – and celebrate the first live recording of Pissy with us! 🎤💪🏽🏳️‍🌈

DYKE PING – HOMO PONG!At the Sportfest – Tournament Edition of Queer Ping Pong, the table becomes a playing field for exchange, attitude and queer joy. The focus is on a FLINTA*-focused tournament that combines sporting ambition with collective lightness. Under the motto My opponents are an inspiration, dykes, allies and communities will come together for an afternoon full of movement, encounters and beats (13:00 T**lin, 15:00 SXCL). 13:00-17:00 Tournament17:00-19:00 Open Play Register in advance via queerpingpong@gmail.com Queer Ping Pong brings club culture to the plate in daylight – accessible, participatory, low-threshold and fun. With spin or without – come to play, watch, cheer or just be together. Take your rackets with you. There are also rackets available on site – anyone can join in. DJ SXCL is a versatile musician from Reunion Island. Producer and disc jockey since 2017, they have been morphing their style with time to fit their eclectic taste. Going from house to progressive trance, to electro and more recently to old-school techno. T**lin is a queer feminist, human rights activist and passionate sound lover. Queeriental is her label for DJ sets and performances between oriental beats and Middle Eastern sounds, in several languages.

After three weeks of Sportfest let’s celebrate! With Magic Dyke* (Daddy Dyke, Boy dis Troy, Irn Bruce, Fountain Fantasy) followed by DJ Gilda. Magic Dyke* is a masc Dyke* stripping group based in Berlin by and for lesbians, queer women, non-binary, trans, intersex and agender people showing masc stripping from non-cis masculinities and give butches, studs, bois, mascs and genderfuckers a stage to feel sexy in a world that tells them they aren’t. Since May 2022, Magic Dyke* creates sensational shows and provides a party that is a safe space for the SLINTA* (sapphic, lesbian, intersex, non-binary, transgender, agender) community in Berlin.

Six Sportfest artists meet on a sporty panel that sets the pace: with whistles, stopwatches and topic changes in a sprint. Here, the balls are passed to each other without competition and sweaty team spirit is developed around the various projects.

Alisa Tretau (moderation) realizes cultural projects at the interface of art, society and political practice. She recently published the website nichtnurmuetter.de.

This workshop combines self-defence techniques with reflection on everyday safety strategies. It is led by Birgit Tönnies (Seitenwechsel e.V.), a pioneer of women’s martial arts in Berlin and trainer since 1983, a multiple-time German and European champion in karate and kickboxing. Together with theatre makers Natasha Borenko and Lidiia Golovanova, the group will practice physical techniques and explore everyday situations through guided exercises and discussion. The workshop is part of an artistic research for the participatory performance »Self defence. No offence.« (19.+21.6.).

We invite FLINTA+ people to take part. Whether you are experienced or new to self-defence, we’ll be happy to meet you. We can have up to 20 participants, please register.

* FLINTA+ stands for: Female, Lesbian, Intersex, Non-binary, Trans*, and Agender people.

How can I go crazy and still come across as likeable?! Verena Unbehaun’s music deals with the current feeling of being lost: the values of her left-wing parents’ home, which were once only supposedly reliable but remain deeply rooted to this day, are disintegrating, but even back then, in her childhood, they were much a beautiful illusion. The »perfect world« of her grandfather from Lüneburg with his operetta compositions—the counter-concept and equally illusory—saved her as a child through family crises. This strange mixture of light entertainment and the intellectual ideals of her 1968 teacher father (who was himself a composer of peace songs and »no nuclear power«-songs) forms the ambivalence in Verena Unbehaun’s song lyrics and her performance.As confusing as it has always been to find a reliable truth between yesterday and the day before yesterday, it’s good that it’s now being turned into music. And everyone sitting together at the bar drinking beer. Some in egg costumes. UNBEHAUN are singer and lyricist Verena Unbehaun and musician Stefan Hillebrand. In 2026, they released their first record on the Staatsakt music label. They are now teaming up again with director Patrick Wengenroth—as they did in the »Planet Porno« days at TD, HAU, Sophiensäle and Schaubühne—to celebrate an evening of madness, profundity and triviality.

For its third edition, »The Listening Biennial« brings together sonic, visual and performative works by an international cohort of artists for a week-long program of creative and reparative listening. Challenging current attention economies with their crisis capitalism, the Biennial offers a restorative space for deep breaths and slow talk, and for listening-with the vibrant matters of our planetary world. Comprised of artistic installations throughout the building of Ballhaus Ost, an informal talk series taking place under the trees, and an evening program of live performances and experimental sounds, we invite audiences into a listening journey full of poetic voices, stories, noises and songs. In particular, »The Listening Biennial« works at building greater listening cultures, nurturing radical openness and compassionate action. The Listening Biennial is an artistic, research project focusing on listening as a creative, critical capacity. It is compris of a network of partner institutions aednd cultural venues around the world in support of greater listening cultures and practices. P R O G R A M Exhibition:Mi 3.9. – So 7.9. 13:00 – 18:00 (Free entrance) Talks & Conversations:Do 4.9. – Sa 6.9. 18:00 – 19:30 (Free entrance) Live Performances:Doors 19:30 / Start 20:00 Mi 3.9.: Siegmar Zacharias, Mariana CarvalhoDo 4.9.: Stefan Roigk, Brandon LaBelle, Isuru Kumarasinghe & Sara MikolaiFr 5.9.: Lílian Campesato, Agustín Genoud, Kirstin BurckhardtSa 6.9.: Miguel Buenrostro, Yara Mekawei, Ola Zielińska Installations: Mario Asef, Max Bloching, Tatiana Fiodorova, Helen Hine, Annette le Fort, Nicole L’Huillier, Silvia Maglioni / Graeme Thomson, Israel Martínez, Oficina de Autonomia, ~pes (Elizabeth Gallón Droste & Pablo Torres Gómez) Audio works: Florence Cats/Lilja María Ásmundsdóttir (Belgium/Iceland), Rachel S. Y. Chen (Singapore), Kaur Chimuk (India), Čhoakkeladd (Kashmir), Mariana Pinto Coelho Dias (Portugal), MycoDyke (India), Hear & Found (Thailand), Shwe Wutt Hmon (Myanmar), Lynn Nandar Htoo (Myanmar), Lagos Sound Artists Collective (Nigeria), Okui Lala, Ana Estrada, Nasrikah (Malaysia/ Australia/Indonesia), Nicole L’Huillier (Chile/Germany), Chong Li-chuan (Singapore), Subash Thebe Limbu (Nepal), Elena Lucca (Argentina), Imaad Majeed (Sri Lanka), Yara Mekawei (Egypt), Graciela Muñoz (Chile), Jacqueline Nova (Belgium/Colombia), Lujáne Vaqar Pagganwala (Pakistan), Amanda Piña (Austria/México), Ruhail Qaisar (Ladakh), Superlative Futures – Wong Zihao & Diancong Liu (Singapore), Irazema H. Vera (Peru), Valentina Villarroel (Chile), YIM Sui Fong (Hong Kong), zeropowercut (Patna, India). Curated by: Mario Asef, Brandon LaBelle, Alecia Neo, Soledad Garcia Saavedra, Suvani Suri

We invite you to join us for an info zoom: Ozi Ozar, Anne Brammen, and Daniel Schrader will present Ballhaus Ost and opportunities for collaboration with focus on the upcoming submission dates for the Hauptstadtkulturfonds (1.10.) and the Bezirksamt Pankow (15.10.). Please register by 10.9. at info@ballhausost.de. Information for artists you also find here.